Quick, bathe! The Ants are Coming…
We are being overrun by ants! It happens periodically and it is truly an awful thing. Where are they getting in? Do we have any more clear caulk? Do you think if we put the house on stilts? Questions, questions…but, the one you will never hear a person ask another is, “Can you believe the stink of those ants?” At least, not any people that I’m acquainted with.
Yet, that’s precisely how they find their way into your house, into your pantries, scouting crumbs or anything else that strikes their fancy. They rub their abdomens on the surface of whatever they happen to be crawling over – especially when they are carrying something big, like a crumb – and the other ants actually smell the pheromones they leave on the trail by using their antennae. That’s why they keep coming in single file, sniffing and twitching as they go. Their sense of smell (more like their chemical analysis, truth be told) is so acute that it is many times more sensitive than that of a dog. And a bloodhound can smell a scent 4 years old! A dog can actually smell a bone under two feet or more of dirt. And it isn’t just more sensitive, it’s more qualitatively precise. When we walk into a house and there is a stew cooking, we smell the symphony. The dog smells individual ingredients and, if he hadn’t devoted so much of his brain to smell, he might be able to tell you what each was. And, yet…the ant can smell many times better.
So, it seems to me that there should be non-hazardous products available to actually confuse the ant smell-o-vision. I mean, how hard would it be to put the smell of a dreaded ant predator over their trail? Product idea, American industry!!
My wife and I have our own version. We got a 5-gallon bucket of Vicks Vaporub and have been using a trowel to jam it into all our corners, cracks and crevices. It has a few downsides, sure, but it has eliminated our ant problem!
What do you guys do?
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Are you sure those pheremones are coming from crumbs? Better check those suckers out.
Mom, the pheromones are coming from the ants. They pick up the crumbs and their little bellies drag on the ground, apparently pheromone laden little bellies. It’s gotta be true, because I read it.
Just step on them as they come! You will get excercise at the same time.
Yaoh! Ants! Watch out for the C, man.
Helen Keller never had any problems with “ants”. I wonder what her “solution” was?
Maynard, I guess from what I just said that it wouldn’t be much problem for Helen – until the pantry was bare!
And, Gail … I like the exercise idea – but I don’t know what the C is. I hope you aren’t referring to cockroaches! If so, I definitely prefer ants!
I’ll take your ants if you’ll take my pantry moths. No cockroaches, please!
Of course, if I take Gail’s advice and use it on my moths, I might learn how to fly
!
Best fix is SNOW. We have no ants here at all. But we do have mice, er, used to have mice. They are seeking warmth and bottom of the cupboard goodies.
I just came down to the basement to put a load of laundry in the machine and I swear one of GL’s mice has made it to my family room……he must have been very tired from skiing all the way down here to Kansas and laid down to rest……..and died! Now what do I do? I haven’t had a dead mouse in the house since we moved from Manchester…….I’d sure rather have ants, alive or dead! Come to think of it, I think I’ll check all my spider traps. Maybe the darned thing got caught in one of them………I’ll let you know.
Con, just because you read something doesn’t make it true……did you not read the item on fiction and non-fiction? Did we waste all that money on yore educashion? I still think the pheremones are not necessarily on the little bellies of the ants and you know how I am when there is something that I know but don’t understand. lol
Ma, you actually did waste a lot of money educating me. That’s alright…karma has caught up to me!
And, as far as that mouse is concerned, I think GL could at least take the time to drive down and dispose of it.
Hey, Ma, aren’t you glad you didn’t waste any money educating me?
Didn’t have to waste money on you……we kept you in the state and you are almost running a school of higher learning (with your own smarts, lol). Never forget the PHD and IQ thing. Plus you have contributed one of the best and prettiest Kindergarten teachers in the state…….what more could a mother ask?